songcontestsfandomcom-20200214-history
50 States of Song 2016
The 50 States of Song 2016 competition was the first edition of the 50 States of Song. It was held between March and June 2016. The contest was managed by gplehner, and was the first US-based contest to feature an entry from all fifty states. Rules The rules for the 50 States of Song 2016 were loosely based around the Eurovision Song Contest, with some minor differences: *The song must be under 3 minutes and 30 seconds. *The song must be an original composition. No covers! *The song must have been released publicly during the previous year.* *The artist or band must live in or be from the U.S. state they represent. *The artist or band must not have had a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 at any time prior to the contest. This guarantees up-and-coming artists only. *The song should be accompanied by a music video. * In this contest's edition, songs released from August 2014 thru December 2015 were allowed. This rule would be changed in future contest to only include songs released publicly for the first time in the 12 months prior to the contest. Venue Although the song contest is held entirely online, the first edition was "held" in Los Angeles, California - the city closest to where the contest manager resided at the time. Semifinals The qualifications for the finals saw the fifty states broken into five groups of ten, organized alphabetically, and then each group constituted about four or five qualifiers for the Finals. Voting was on a 0 to 10 scale, with 10 points given to the user's favorite song of the ten, and 0 points going to the least favorite song. Users were allowed to vote for any of the groups but were limited to one submission. Individual ballots were thrown out if there was irrefutable evidence that the user followed "pattern voting" - choosing one song to give 10 points, and disregarding the other nine songs in the list by giving their points in order. Group Results Below are the results of each group semifinal. Users could vote one time each for each group of ten songs; they did not have to vote for all five groups. Therefore, some groups had more points overall than others. Points were allotted a bit differently than in the Final - each ballot cast gave their favorite song 10 points, 2nd favorite = 8, 3rd favorite = 7, etc. all the way down to their least favorite, which would score 0 points. Advancement to the Final was determined by the average number of points available, not overall points scored. Because of this rule, five songs from Group 2 advanced, while only three songs from Group 5 advanced. Group 1 Fi (from Colorado - pronounced like "fi" in "fire") won the first group semifinal with their electro-pop single, "Clocks." In terms of point distribution, this was the most successful group final, and it also would produce the eventual contest winner (Arizona). Alabama would have broken the tie with Arizona due to the contest creator's votes, but points scored over the points available allowed both songs to proceed to the Final. Group 2 With some fan support, Maria Diebolt (from Indiana) won the second group semifinal with "Shake Up The World," a song with dance-pop vibes that would not be out of place on a radio station somewhere! Maine's Builder Of The House, which placed 2nd, performed well with general voters. Due to overall points scored per points available, five songs were able to proceed to the Final from this group. Otherwise, Texas would have gone in place of either Hawaii or Kentucky. One of the five ballots cast for this group was thrown out due to voter fraud. Group 3 Maine and Massachusetts tied for first place with funk and indie pop singles. Missouri's representative, Kangaroo Knife Fight, would beat both songs out in the Final and place in the Top 5. Mississippi's LyRanda Aalece finished last with "Closer," which finished last overall in the contest by receiving the fewest points available from voters. Group 4 Tigirlily's "Victory" looked bright - in the country-heavy Group 4, it finished first with 21 points. Fan support from Oklahoma helped boost one of the youngest contestants, Emily Faith, to the final. One of the four ballots cast for this group was thrown out due to voter fraud. Group 5 Social media can do wonders, folks. The fan support for Indiana and Oklahoma pailed in comparison to Utah's Whitney Lusk, who far and away won Group 5 with her rock-pop song a la Kelly Clarkson, "Dark Side." Although 17 ballots were cast for Group 5 (more than all of the other groups combined), 7 of these ballots were thrown out due to voter fraud. Due to overall points scored per points available, only three songs proceeded from this group. Otherwise, Texas would have gone in place of either Hawaii or Kentucky from Group 2. Wisconsin broke the tie with Texas due to the nullification of the contest creator's votes. Tabular Results text Finals The 2016 Finals were held from May 11 through June 11, 2016. Voters had approximately one month to analyze the final 20 songs, which were ordered randomly via a Youtube playlist, and submit their ballot via a custom survey. The 20 songs were broken into two groups of ten. Voting was on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 points given to the user's favorite song from the ten listed, and 1 point going to the least-favorite song. After the voting period had closed, points were converted into a 0-12 point scale, similar to that used in Eurovision, with 12 or 10 points going to the user's 10-point vote, 7 or 8 points going to the user's 9-point votes, 5 or 6 points going to the user's 8-point votes, and so forth. This strategy is not preferable, but a post-analysis of the ballots revealed that the Top 3 songs would have placed in the same order, regardless of whether the 10 and 12 points were switched around. Video Final Results Twenty US states participated in the final. 23 ballots were recorded, 17 of which were used to determine the final winner. The remaining 6 ballots were disqualified due to pattern voting. The highlighted US state was the winner of the final. Tabular Results Below are the reorganized tabular results of the 17 validated ballots. Ballot #17 Although the "TOTAL" column is the official final score, it was discovered after the results were published that Ballot #17 had been incorrectly announced. Ballot #11 had only submitted their votes for the first ten entries; Ballot #17 had utilized pattern voting for the first ten, but achieved a valid result for the last ten. Thus, it had been planned to use the two ballots to give points for their fair results, but this was not done. The affected scores are in italics, and a hypothetical "revised" score is also available. Note that this revised score would have affected Washington and Georgia the most, while supporting Hawaii and Oklahoma the most. Maine and Hawaii would have been in the Top 5, and Colorado would have tied for last with Kentucky instead of finishing last singly. Full Ballots Below are the points as given via the survey, which includes the points style of that survey, as well. Votes in RED are not counted in the TOTAL column. Category:50 States of Song